Kevin Stevens on 1/9/03 2:31 PM wrote: > Yes, some of them are available in *either* USB 2 or Firewire. That > doesn't really help me, because I'm talking about a portable computer. > I'm going to take it into the field, and I'm going to run into peripherals > that I can't use. Guaranteed. It's going to be a hassle, and I'm going > to have to buy a PCMCIA card to support USB2 and carry it around. >
As I understand it, the USB port (1.1 or 2) doesn't provide enough power to drive external devices, thus forcing you to carry around a power supply for that device. It seems like this would be counter productive for people who want to take portable devices into the field. Shortly after I got my iBook (500/combo dual USB) I swapped in a 40GB drive. I then bought a USB enclosure for the 10GB I removed. Unfortunately it would run off of my iBooks USB port. I had to purchase an AC adapter for it. After I realized how damned slow USB was (USB 2 wasn't out yet) I soon after bought a FireWire enclosure. It works great, no AC. I liked it so much that I now have a second drive (20GB this time) installed in an identical FireWire enclosure. I've also seen CDRWs that are FireWire bus powered but no USB counterpart (although I haven't shopped for one since USB 2 came out). I had considered buying one of these for the 24x burn speed since the iBook is only 4x. Again, I didn't want to haul a wall-wart around. My motivation wasn't political, rather practical. I needed true portability without hauling a bunch of extra stuff around. -Mark -- G-Books is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Check our web site for refurbished PowerBooks | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> G-Books list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/g-books.html> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/g-books%40mail.maclaunch.com/> --------------------------------------------------------------- >The Think Different Store http://www.ThinkDifferentStore.com ---------------------------------------------------------------
